Program Segmentation of Linear Transmission

• US 20110211812A1
• Filed: 02/26/2010
• Published: 09/01/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Comcast Cable Communications LLC (Comcast Corporation)
• Inventors: Zhou, Hongzhong, Farrell, Ryan M., Tzoukermann, Evelyne, Jojic, Oliver, Shevade, Bageshree
• Granted Patent: US 10,116,902 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 386/250
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/21815 comprising local storage units
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/233 Processing of audio elementary streams monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23418 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics television picture signal circuitry for scene change detection H04N5/147; filtering for image enhancement G06T5/00; methods or arrangements for recognising scenes G06V20/00; arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/23424 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for inserting or substituting an advertisement
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4334 Recording operations recording of a television signal H04N5/76; arrangements for recording or accumulating broadcast information or broadcast-related information H04H60/27
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/4394 involving operations for analysing the audio stream, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in audio streams arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of audio in broadcast systems H04H60/58
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44008 involving operations for analysing video streams, e.g. detecting features or characteristics in the video stream arrangements characterised by components specially adapted for monitoring, identification or recognition of video in broadcast systems H04H60/59
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/44016 involving splicing one content stream with another content stream, e.g. for substituting a video clip
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/47202 for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/812 involving advertisement data advertising per se G06Q30/02
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/84 Generation or processing of descriptive data, e.g. content descriptors systems specially adapted for using meta-information in broadcast systems H04H60/73
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/8456 by decomposing the content in the time domain, e.g. in time segments
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 7/17318 Direct or substantially direct transmission and handling of requests

Abstract

Content streams may be segmented to provide automatic extraction and storage of content items without intervening commercials or other unrelated content. These content items may then be stored in a database and made accessible to subscribers through, for example, an on-demand service. Automatic segmentation may include the identification of program boundaries, segmentation of a content stream based on the boundaries and the subsequent classification of the segments into content types. For example, audio and video duplication detection may be used to identify commercials since commercials tend to repeat frequently over a relatively short amount of time. A system may further identify an end of program indicator in a video stream to determine when a program ends. Accordingly, if a program ends after a scheduled end time, a recording device (e.g., the program is being recorded) may automatically extend the recording time to capture the entire program.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, at a processing device, a content stream from a content source, the content stream having a plurality of content items of a first type and a second type;

detecting a transition in the content stream using image analysis of one or more frames in the content stream;

segmenting, by the processing device, the content stream into a plurality of segments based on the detected transition; and

categorizing the plurality of segments into content of the first type and content of the second type based on an analysis of one or more visual characteristics of the plurality of segments.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first type corresponds to non-commercial programming and the second type corresponds to commercials.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the image analysis includes detecting a cut in the content stream by determining a joint entropy between a plurality of frames in the content stream separated by the cut.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising combining segments of the first type into a single content item, wherein the first type includes at least one of:

movies and television shows.

5. The method of claim 4, further comprising storing the content item in a video-on-demand database.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein segmenting the content includes:

detecting a juncture in the content stream where a logo occurs or stops occurring; and

segmenting the content at the detected juncture.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the logo identifies a source of origin.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein categorizing the plurality of segments comprises:

analyzing audio of the plurality of segments to detect a repeating audio portion;

determining whether the number of segments having the repeating audio portion is above a threshold; and

in response to determining that the number of segments having the repeating audio portion is above the threshold, categorizing the segments having the repeating audio portion as commercials.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein categorizing the plurality of segments is performed based on a classification algorithm and wherein the classification algorithm is selected based on at least one of the first content type and the second content type.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the transition includes at least one of:

a cut, a fade and a logo.

11. An apparatus comprising:

a processor; and

memory operatively coupled to the processor and storing computer readable instructions that, when executed, cause the apparatus to;

initiate recording of a content item between a start time and an end time;

analyze a recorded portion of the content item to detect a visual end of program indicator;

determine whether the visual end of program indicator is detected in the recorded portion; and

in response to determining that the visual end of program indicator is not detected, determine whether a threshold time has been reached; and

in response to determining that the threshold time has been reached, automatically extend the recording end time.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the start time and the end time are determined from content information for the content item.

13. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the threshold time corresponds to the end time.

14. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the threshold time corresponds to a predefined amount of time before the end time.

15. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein the visual end of program indicator includes an animated element included in the content item.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein analyzing a recorded portion of the content item includes:

generating a first histogram of a plurality of consecutive video frames of the recorded portion; and

comparing the first histogram to a second histogram generated from a plurality of consecutive video frames including the end of program indicator.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the computer readable instructions, when executed, further cause the apparatus to select the second histogram for comparison with the first histogram based on at least one of:

a content type of the video content item and a channel on which the video content item is transmitted.

18. A method comprising:

dividing audio for a video stream into a plurality of segments of a predefined size;

determining an audio energy over time for each of the audio segments;

determining a number of matching audio energies for an audio energy of an audio segment;

determining whether the number of matches exceeds a threshold; and

in response to determining that the number of matches exceeds the threshold, classifying a video segment corresponding to the audio energy as commercial content.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising classifying each video segment corresponding to each of the matching audio energies as commercial content.

20. The method of claim 18, wherein the predefined size comprises an amount of time.

21. The method of claim 18, wherein in response to determining that the number of matches does not exceed the threshold, classifying the video segment as non-commercial content.